Saturday, June 14, 2008

Earthquake

Today was an exciting and interesting day for a different reason than what I would have expected.  There was an earthquake in northern Japan today and I felt the aftershock tremors here in Tokyo.  I was in my apartment and noticed my desk was moving back and forth.  I, at first, thought that it was related to something else.  Such as the air conditioner or construction being done nearby.  It was about two seconds after this that I realized what was going on because it felt like the whole building was moving.  I jumped up and ran to the doorway to stand underneath it.  I braced myself against the frame and waited for about a couple of minutes for things to calm down.  Once it was over, my heart was racing and I had to sit down for a bit.  This all might be a bit of an overreaction, but having never experienced anything like this and being in a foreign country was a unsettling at first.  Needless to say, I am fine here in Tokyo. 












On a lighter note, I realized looking through some pictures how often I've had someone else in the picture by accident, while taking a photograph of something else.  Looking at the one above, you can see the woman looking at me does not seem too happy to be in my photo.  I was originally taking a photo of the man on the far right because of what he was wearing.  

2 comments:

Scott said...

I seem to remember reading that Tokyo's buildings are built to withstand sizable earthquakes, but there is nothing like an earthquake, even a light one, to undermine one's feeling of being safely grounded. What floor are you on? It's probably better to vacate rather than attempting to hold the place up with a Samson-like stance in the doorway.

Hi, Mindi, hope you're havin' some fun (um, not too much) while the cat's away!

Megan said...

One question - Did you grab the precious laptop on your way to the doorway? Too bad the webcam wasn't on - that would have been priceless. :)